900-person electoral division to monitor March 1994 elections.

• Position: El Salvador - United Nations developments

A new 900-person electoral division for the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) has been approved by the Security Council to monitor the electoral process in El Salvador. Voting, scheduled to take place in March 1994, would be the "logical culmination of the peace process", the Council noted.

On 21 May, the Secretary-General reported (S/2 5812 and Adds. 1-3) that the new unit would observe, during the pre-election period, political meetings and demonstrations, follow up electoral advertising and reporting in the media, as well as receive complaints before and during polling, and monitor election irregularities.

In unanimously adopting on 27 May resolution 832 (1993), the Council also extended ONUSAL's mandate until 30 November. it urged the Government of El Salvador and the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) to implement fully al commitments under the December 1992 Peace Accords, which had formally ended that country's 12-year civil war.

Those commitments, among other things, related to transfer of lands, reintegration of ex-combatants and implementation of the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Commission on the purification of the Armed Forces and the Commission on the Truth.

All in all, the peace process in El Salvador had "advanced significantly" and was "on course", the Secretary-General had reported on 21 May. There had also been "progress towards other principal objectives": the establishment of civilian control over the military; the beginnings of the establishment of a civilian police force; the reunification of Salvadorian society; and the democratization of national institutions, with full respect for human rights.

Established in May 1991 as an integrated peace-keeping operation to monitor all agreements between the Government and the FMLN, ONUSAL was initially mandated to verify the compliance with the 1990 San Jose Agreement on human rights. Subsequently, its mandate was enlarged - and its strength increased - to fulfil verification requirements of the Peace Accords.

Truth Commission

The implementation of the recommendations of the Commission on the Truth, which had received more than 22,000 complaints of serious acts of violence that occurred between January 1980 and July 1991, was also reviewed in the Secretary-General's report.

The FMLN accepted the Commission's recommendations but, in some cases, conditioned its implementation on the Government doing likewise.

El Salvador President Alfredo...